I Even Know Her Footsteps
by fabala-fae
Summary: Abby ends things with Carter after realizing there's no hope for their relationship. Carter's POV - kind of intense.


Title: I Even Know Her Footsteps  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine!  
  
Summary: Abby ends things with Carter after realizing that it's been over for a long time now. Carter's POV- kind of intense.  
  
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I don't need to look at the door to know it's her. The creak of the door that's lasting a second too long, the way her shoes drag along the floor just a tiny bit more than usual, the sound of her watch accidentally tapping the handle as her hand lingers on the door . . . she doesn't want to be here any more than I do.  
  
"Hey," I mumble.  
  
Abby doesn't respond. Instead, I hear the door creak once more and I know she's leaning on it, not sure what to do next. I consider speaking again, but the door shuts with much reluctance and somehow I wish it hadn't.  
  
"Carter," she says softly, and again I hear her somber footsteps across the room. "I need to talk to you."  
  
"That sounds promising," I joke weakly, but the humor is smothered by the tension in the air. I settle back into the uncomfortable silence and wait for whatever she plans to say.  
  
Yet Abby doesn't do much of anything for a very, very long moment. There's a soft tapping from the foot of the bed - her fingernails are short and don't make a sound as she nervously taps the metal bar on the gurney. There's a rhythm in her fingertips that sounds like "Wipeout," and as the taps reverberate through the gurney, I want to hum along. But it doesn't seem appropriate.  
  
"So . . ." I finally begin. "You said you wanted to talk to me . . ."  
  
It takes her another small eternity to stop tapping. The side of the gurney dips a tiny bit as she sits down next to me, and the near-touch of her body to the side of my leg makes me want to cry out in happiness.  
  
But again, I'm quiet. She wants to talk.  
  
"Two years," she finally muses, and her words are barely audible over the hum of electric silence in the room. "We talked about this, how many times? About how we danced around being together?"  
  
"A hundred times," I chime in helpfully. And it's true. We've lamented about that particular waste of time in entirely too many instances.  
  
"I never kept track," she says, and there's a wistful chuckle hiding behind her voice. "We knew what we wanted, and we just . . . let it go."  
  
"Not true," I counter. "We're together now, that's all that matters."  
  
And suddenly I remember where we are, why we're here, in this sterile smelling hospital room. "It won't always be like this," I remind her softly. "I know things are bad now . . . but they'll be better soon."  
  
The silence that follows is broken by the exhilarated screaming in my mind as Abby grasps my hand. "This is my fault, you know," she mutters.  
  
The thrill of her touch is muted as my heart falls at her words. "God, Abby, don't . . ."  
  
"I haven't been with you enough lately," she continues. "I mean, you've been up here all this time, all alone . . . I should have made more of an effort."  
  
"More of an effort?" Words to prove her wrong come all at once, and it takes effort to select the right ones. "Abby - you're the only reason I even care about recovering. If it weren't for you, I'd give up now."  
  
"And I'm not just talking about . . . this," she tells me as a continuation of her initial thought. I swear to God, the woman refuses to accept how important she is to me. "In our relationship as a whole. I was barely there, I was barely invested . . ."  
  
This quiets me for a moment. It's hard to hear her admit something we'd been fighting about only . . . well, it seems like forever ago but it may have only been a day. Time passes strangely in these halls. "We had our problems," I acknowledge, dutifully referring to our one and only fight. "But Abby, now we have another chance . . . we can rebuild what we want our relationship to be from now on. It's a new start."  
  
She seems to be contemplating this in her silence. I take the opportunity to play "Wipeout" on a mental drumset.  
  
"When I saw you -" She pauses for a moment, and waits for something. I can only assume she's hiding tears. "When I saw - God damn it, will you shut up?" she hollers, though not in my direction.  
  
Alarmed nonetheless, I attempt to stay perfectly silent, in case my breathing is offensive. "I'm sorry," I say meekly. It occurs to me that she's yelling at the machines - I'm momentarily relieved that I've been living with them for a while now, and seem to have accomplished the feat of ignoring them.  
  
"I saw you in the trauma room," she finally finishes in one rushed statement. "And everyone was swarming around, and all I could think . . ." She trails off again and rips my heart in half when her hand leaves mine, but it comes back in a moment and I can feel the tear she's wiped away. "I knew it was my fault."  
  
"Abby." My tone is skeptical. "Unless you cut my brakes, or slashed my tires, or whatever went wrong with that piece of shit Jeep, it's not your fault."  
  
And that's when I realize what she really means . . . and my tone softens. "I mean, I was upset, but that's not your fault . . . I shouldn't have just driven away like that, I should have stayed to work things out. But my emotions didn't make me drive into that tree." Now it sounds like I'm pleading, and I suppose I am. "You have to believe me, Abby, it was just very, very bad timing that we happened to fight before my Jeep tried to kill me."  
  
She's completely silent so it's difficult to tell if she believes me or not. "When they called me . . ." She swallows hard and now I know she's holding back her emotions. "I got here as soon as I could, but they'd already cracked your chest . . ."  
  
I cringe at the memory I experience only though the pain in her voice. Truth be told, I don't remember jack shit from the trauma, and I think I'm better off that way. The knowledge of staples in my chest is unnerving enough without the memory of how they got there. "Try not think about it," I murmur as she squeezes my hand.  
  
". . . and they were all yelling, and frantic, and there was blood everywhere, and it took forever for Weaver to stabilize you . . ."  
  
"Abby, please," I urge. "Put it out of your mind. Look at me now. I'm all right, I'm not in the trauma room anymore." It's difficult for me to say it, but not too difficult, seeing as I could be talking about any random patient with the amount of emotional detachment I've allowed myself to have. It's easier to care about Abby than it is to remember anything else. And it takes a staggering amount of willpower to block the last time I was in a gurney from my mind. "As soon as I get out of this dump, we can start our lives over again."  
  
I stop when I hear her choke back another sob, and it breaks my heart to know that seeing me this way has affected her so badly. "Shhhh," I reassure her. "It's not that bad, I'm still alive, right?"  
  
She doesn't try to hide her next sob, and I nearly break into tears myself at the sound of her crying. "I'm sorry," she finally whispers, taking my hand with her this time as she wipes her tear away. My hand touches her cheek in the journey and I nearly die for the feel of her soft skin - and the memory of so many times I've stroked her cheek before. God, it seems like it's been so long since I could touch her face . . . but then again, an hour is too long for me to go without her, so who am I to judge how long it's been?  
  
Our hands clasped, our fingers intertwined; she places my hand against her cheek again and I adore her for it. Thank God. I was afraid to do so myself, for fear of the sadness in her step.  
  
"I can't do this anymore."  
  
And again, the excitement of being close to her is completely deflated with a few simple words. "Do what?" I ask tentatively.  
  
"I can't . . . sit here, anymore, and watch you suffer," she whispers, and I barely feel the kiss she places on my hand before returning it to my side. "It's selfish and horrible, and I know I'm giving -"  
  
"Wait, wait," I finally find the strength to say. "You're breaking up with me because I'm in the hosp -"  
  
"- up on you," she finishes, "but John, I've been over this in my head a hundred times . . . and on some level, I knew that . . . that it would come to this . . ."  
  
"Abby, please, wait a second," I interrupt hurriedly, the shock only barely registering. "I know we had a fight, and we still have some issues to resolve, but you can't really want to end what we have together - what we could have together - over something like this!"  
  
Her deep sigh sounds like she's resolving her voice again. "Why didn't you tell me you were depressed?" she finally whispers. "I would have listened to you, I just didn't know you were doing that badly . . . you let me say those horrible things to you . . ."  
  
I try not to get too annoyed by the fact that she's changed the subject. "I'm not depressed," I assure her, but gauging the direction of this conversation, I'm not sure how long that statement will be true. "Just because we had an argument doesn't mean I'm depressed. I was upset, yes, and so were you . . . but God, Abby, if you're worried about my mental state, I don't think dumping me while I'm in a fucking hospital bed is the way to lift my spirits."  
  
She's tapping again, this time against my hand, and this time with no rhythm in her fingers. Just a desperate outlet of stress, an idle habit - and I wish to God that putting my hand to her cheek would help anything. But quite frankly, I'm afraid to do any more damage to this situation. Doesn't mean I don't still ache for it. "Just give me some time," I finally beg. "Once I'm out, life can go back to -"  
  
"When the cop said it was a suicide attempt, John," she interrupts, "I just . . . I broke down." Her hand leaves mine in one harsh movement and if I could possibly comprehend what the hell was going on, I would respond. But I'm completely stunned and lost for words. "I started crying like a lunatic, and then when Luka talked to me . . . I freaked out."  
  
The wind had been knocked out of me entirely too recently to comment on *that* little bit of information. I'm reeling so severely that I miss a lot of what she says after "Luka." And I'm so affected that I don't really care.  
  
"I started screaming at him," she's saying when I tune back in. "He kept trying to talk rationally and I kept screaming that he was wrong, I got so worked up . . ."  
  
She seems to realize that she's getting worked up all over again, and after a deep, calming breath, she continues. "And then I couldn't come see you for so long, John. I couldn't bring myself to do it. Every day I'd drive past that goddamned tree, I kept seeing that crumpled piece of metal and picturing you inside, even after they cleared it up . . ."  
  
She trails off and I take this moment to regain a rational thought in my mind. "I wasn't trying to kill myself," is all I can say, in a low, muffled voice. "I was upset, you know that. It was stupid of me to drive away when I was angry, but Abby, you have to believe me, something went wrong in that car, I swerved off the -"  
  
"And it's taking so much out of me not to be angry with you," she informs me mournfully. "I want to be furious, I want to scream at you for trying to take yourself away from me, but at the same time I'm . . . I'm so miserable about this, John, and so sad, and still angry, and I -"  
  
She stops suddenly, and I'm left waiting for the end of that sentence for quite a long time. "I'm so sorry, Abby," I finally manage to whisper. "I'm sorry for what I've done to you, but please believe me, I wasn't trying to do anything but drive home that day -"  
  
"Hey." Her voice is strange, almost formal all of a sudden, and she's making a conscious effort to sound rational. "I've just been . . . hiding up here."  
  
I'm not sure what she's talking about. "Abby?" I question gently.  
  
There's another pause, and I wonder what she's thinking. "I know," she finally sighs. "I'm just . . . I'm not ready, I guess."  
  
Ahh. So she's apparently changed the subject again - nice of her to let me know. "Then don't do it," I urge her. "Please, give me another chance . . . anything you want me to do, I'll do it. I can't end this just because of one stupid fight, I can't let you go . . ."  
  
She's silent once again, and the tension of waiting for her reply nearly kills me. "Yeah, I know," she finally chuckles. "There's a couple down the hall, they've been fighting all morning. It's really getting on my nerves."  
  
Slightly bewildered, I listen and attempt to break though the complete silence with my own power of concentration. "I don't hear anything, Abby," I tell her cautiously. "But can we talk about us, for just a second?"  
  
She sighs once more, and it's the saddest inhalation of oxygen that I've ever heard. It silences me. "His grandmother," she murmurs. "Called this morning . . . wants him off the respirator."  
  
I'm now thoroughly confused. "I don't care about some patient," I inform her desperately. "Please, let's just -"  
  
I'm silenced by a mournful "All right" from Abby, and before I can ask what the hell she's on, I feel her lips on my cheek and I'm rendered completely, utterly, pathetically speechless. Damn the power this woman has on me.  
  
And it helps nothing when she whispers "I love you" into my ear, as delicately as a human voice can become. Before I can possibly hope to reply, I realize that these three little words have taken my breath away. My God - I knew she affected me emotionally, but to physically leave me unable to breathe . . . how can I let her go without a fight?  
  
But something's wrong. Something's incredibly wrong all of a sudden. She's nowhere near me now, her lips far gone from my ear, yet her words still somehow hanging in the air. The air, goddamn it, that I can't seem to inhale, and desperately I attempt to choke for it - but my chest makes no movement.  
  
From far, far away I hear a choked sob, and vaguely I feel Abby's hand desperately squeeze my own. I try to scream her name - what the hell is going on?? I search my mind for some medical reason as to why I can't breathe, something beyond the fact that I'm so painfully in love with Abby that -  
  
"He's not in pain," I suddenly hear from the other side of the gurney. It's a low, accented voice, and beyond my complete misery I recognize it to be Luka Kovac. When did he get here? Why didn't I hear him come in? And why the hell is he telling Abby complete bullshit like that? Of course I'm in pain, I can't breathe!  
  
"I know." Abby's voice is wrought with emotion. "I'm sorry I freaked out earlier . . . I just . . ."  
  
"You don't have to apologize," Luka murmurs. "It's difficult news to hear."  
  
She's quiet for a moment. "I stared at the EEG for hours, but . . . nothing."  
  
Luka says something else, but his words are swallowed by the alarm on one of the newly squealing machines. Desperately I try to squeeze Abby's hand, to tell her to help me somehow . . . but I'm startled to find that I can't, and concentrate as I might, I'm unable to even open my eyes.  
  
And it takes me only a moment longer to realize that I'm not actually gasping for breath. I'm not moving at all, and I can only now recognize the trach tube in my throat.  
  
"I've just been talking to him all this time," I can hear Abby mumble. "As if he could answer back, or something . . ."  
  
"I'm sure he could hear you," Luka assures her.  
  
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear the rest of the machines I've been ignoring all this time, and somewhere down the hall, a couple is suddenly screaming insults at each other. I only barely make the association between Abby shouting at someone to shut up earlier, and me wanting to do the same.  
  
The ambush of senses makes me want to huddle into a ball and cry, or scream, or just whimper for them to put the fucking trach back in. In fact, as I holler and wail as loudly as I ever had in my life, as clearly as in this last conversation with Abby, I realize that I've been silent for this entire exchange. I've been replying to her in my mind, with as much conviction that I've spoken as I've ever felt before. My eyes have been closed - I haven't even seen the room around me. I don't even know how long I've been this way.  
  
It occurs to me that up till now, the only sounds I could hear were Abby. Her footsteps, her words, the slightest of her sighs - they all drowned out the sounds of the world around me. It suddenly destroys me to know that she never wanted to break up with me, and it shames to me think that five minutes ago, that was my biggest problem. I have seconds left here and all I can think about is how Abby will have to live her life thinking she's responsible for that fucking accident - how somehow, I did it on purpose, and that I've died because of her. I hate the fact that I can't sob like the terrified little boy I've suddenly become.  
  
I don't even know if Abby's crying. I can't hear her over the machines, or that damned couple screaming at each other. I can't see her - I haven't been able to see her for so long now, I realize. It was a cruel trick for my mind to play, making me believe that I was seeing her, talking to her, that I wasn't just a vegetable with a trach tube down my throat, taking an eternity to die and not even getting a good scream out of it.  
  
And for one terrifying moment, in one second, I see a hundred thousand familiar pictures in my mind, as clear as when I'd seen them outside this room. A million colors and faces and images, ingrained into the swirling darkness that no matter how I tried to fight, no matter how I tried to pull myself out of this tornado using only the actions in my mind - another cruel hoax, to make me believe that I have a chance to save myself - I was trapped. And falling.  
  
Yet I see everything I've ever known, a nanosecond of a memory that somehow means everything - a lifetime speeding in front of me with no way for me to see the details, but I still know what it contained. And in the last second of darkness, the very moment I resign myself to the weariness of fighting the fall, I hear her words still lingering in the air . . .  
  
"I love you."  
  
And I let go. 


End file.
